


Immortal Beloved

by romangold



Category: jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, M/M, Sunshine Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4527252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romangold/pseuds/romangold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Staring up at the sky, Jack wondered if he had been born with the curse of wanting what one could never have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immortal Beloved

The sun was what Jack longed for.

He would gaze upon it from beneath the sea, forcing the waters to still so the view was not so distorted. It was bright, but it didn’t glisten as the water did; it shone, it blazed, it warmed. Jack was captivated by it.

Jack was distressed by it.

Though born the last child and only son of Nereus, eldest child of The Sea, the young nymph was given no special treatment and considered no differently than his 50 older sisters. All were banished from breaking the water’s surface until old enough, and punishment would be swift if the rule were to be broken.

Staring up at the sky, Jack wondered if he had been born with the curse of wanting what one could never have.

He was close. Close. Close to the air above, and the wind. And the sun. Jack could just feel it, the rays streaming into the water and onto his body. It blessed his eyes, blue as the sea, and it warmed his skin, pale, that matched the foam stirred up by the waves.

Jack’s hand reached up. His finger poked above the water, followed by the rest of his hand. His wrist was where he stopped. It was enough to feel the chill of the wind on his palm, the sun playing on his fingers. It tingled underneath his skin, sending a short thrill through the young nymph. His ears buzzed. His body shivered.

With the desire to not be caught and ridiculed by his siblings, the freed hand was brought back into the salt and the water and the bubbles.

The taste of the surface had been divine.

For a week, Jack returned to the same spot at the same time of day to lick at the surface with his hand, reveling in the feeling. Once was not enough, and it was not enough the other seven times he had broken his father’s rule.

On a perfect day, when the sea was quiet, his family busy, the sun overhead as it should have been, Jack’s legs took him to the spot where he had sinned for the past week, sticking a hand above the surface for his own pleasure.

Jack didn’t want to do that today. He wanted to dare.

He wanted to live above what he knew.

Jack’s pale face dripped salt water as it broke the surface of the sea he knew. The sunlight tapped his cheeks, his nose. His eyelids. Asked them to open. Jack obliged. Ocean-blue orbs opened to find no land, waves fighting with no vigor. Calm Gaea’s tears were a blanket, rustled only by the wind. Jack had never felt such a thing before. _Wind._

Looking up, Jack found everything he wanted. Clouds, which he had only heard of in lessons and other’s stories, and tales of the gods. The sky was blue, like the sea, like the others had said.

And the sun. _Oh,_ the sun.

The sun was a silhouette of a fiery chariot, four graceful horses prancing on above, their master holding the reigns. He was too brilliant to look at directly, but Jack could tell he was beautiful, the horses as graceful as seaweed, the chariot as glorious as Gaea herself.

Jack stared, dripped, breathed. Bubbles formed and tickled his skin where his body trembled with the wonder of it all, and the water surrounding him rippled as the wonder took hold.

The chariot stopped at high noon above the world, beholding Mother Earth. The piercing eyes of the sun deity seemed to find the nymph’s liquid ones. Jack sunk below the water he knew better than anything else, searching for something familiar after discovering an entire world he knew nothing about.

The water man watched the sun race on when noon had gone, off to the end of the Earth where his evening palace awaited, just like his father had told him. Jack had heard rumors of the concubines and consorts that adorned the halls of the glorious dwelling, made to simply sit and look nice until they were called on for one task or another.

Floating further beneath the surface as he considered the notion boggling around in his mind, Jack wondered if he would dare...surely he would be caught if he did...

But he had already ruined himself once today. Why not twice?

With a wicked grin, Jack rushed the water around him into bubbles and torrents, and whisked himself off after the sun.

* * *

The palace itself was as glorious as Jack had imagined it to be.

It was a pure white marble that reflected the colors around it, sparkling and glittering as a gem did. Jack listened carefully, but could hear no noise from within. Were there not men and women inside to await on the sun deity’s every whim?

Here he came, though. The sky around Jack grew dimmer the closer he saw the horses race towards him and the palace. He ducked down in the water, as close to the shore as he dared, only his eyes and unruly brown hair to be seen above the stillness of the sea.

There. The chariot was nothing short of glamorous, the horses as white as sea foam with gold for manes and tails. Every move they made was agile like the wind and every noise their ivory hooves made was music. They made their way to their stables at once to rest, pulling the chariot along with them once their master had stepped off of it.

Jack’s eyes widened when the sun himself stood on the shore, breathing in the air deeply as the moon uncovered itself, the constellations glinting in the ever-darkening sky. The brilliant rays encircling his head had dimmed for the night, and now his true appearance was shown in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the beauty of Gaea’s darkness.

The sun’s hair was black, as black as the night sky above, as black as Hades’ kingdom. Yet it shone as the moon did, the silver of Selene reflecting from it, caught in it. His teeth were as bright as the sun, as was his smile, sharp as anything. His eyes were not golden as Jack would have assumed, but brown. Moving to gain a better look, however, the nymph could see that his eyes contained gold, woven in and cared for.

The sun sat down on the shore, admiring Mother Earth’s sea, taking it in. Afraid of being seen in the still water, Jack created waves that lapped at the man’s toes. He shut his eyes in concentration, and hundreds of called-upon plankton fluttered to him, decorating the water a faint glow of gold.

Jack smiled when the sun smiled.

Caught up in the beam of the light deity’s grin, Jack hadn’t noticed he’d moved so close to shore, didn’t even know he’d risen his entire head and neck out of the water until, until-

Until he locked eyes with the sun, whose smile only grew. The black-haired man waved.

Jack’s smile, on the other hand, fell flat, and his pale cheeks turned rosy. When the sun didn’t turn from him, the nereid plucked up his courage and raised his hand from the salty golden waters.

Jack waved back.

The sun spoke.

“The waters are...are resplendent, nereid,” he complimented, and Jack noticed that his cheeks were dusted red as well. “Thank you.”

Jack spoke now, blue eyes scintillating. “Thank you.”

The sun tilted his head to the side, curiosity adorning his face. “What for?”

“Warmth,” Jack replied, voice soft. Warmth meant many things at once. Warm words, warm sun rays. Warm smiles, warm waters. The nymph felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest, and the waters around him began to bubble again.

So he let the water become his air, submerging himself wholly into the sea and whisking himself off back where he belonged without another word or gesture to the other man. His family would be confused as to why he was returning so late, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to Jack, and he felt as if nothing else ever would.

All that mattered was the sun.

Jack did not approach the fellow deity again until nearly a week after their first encounter. However, he could not help himself from feeling his sun rays beaming onto his face each day at high noon. Jack derived a bubbly pleasure in his chest from watching the golden chariot glitter, the glorious fire-darting steeds dance through sky and clouds. Each time the man with the halo of radiant fire would continue on through the sky to his evening mansion, Jack would sink back into the water, slowly, slowly, savoring the feeling of true warmth on his cheeks with a smile.

A week after meeting the sun, Jack returned to the palace’s shore. Again, he waited for the chariot to land and the deity to admire the sea as night bloomed.

Jack swept his hands beneath the water, and waves sighed around the shore. The plankton swarmed happily to Jack’s call, lighting up the sea as the stars did the sky. Only when he saw the sun’s face literally shine in joy at the realization that the nymph from a week before was nearby did Jack allow his head and neck to rise above his home.

The two men locked eyes.

Jack spoke first. “Hello!” he greeted.

“Hello, my shy nereid,” the sun returned. “Thank you for coming back and blessing me again with golden waves.”

“You’re welcome. But I’m not really shy.”

The sun cocked his head to the side with an odd smirk. “Oh?”

Jack eyed him. “No. I’m just not allowed to be up here, at the surface.”

The sun smiled, and Jack saw him blush again, as he had been last time. “Well...I’m glad you are here.”

Jack smiled, the sun smiled back, and the waves grew in size.

The nereid forgot about time, and perhaps so did the sun, because they stared at each other smiling for some amount of time. The sun broke the strange lull in their behavior.

“I am Mark.”

A bright name, Jack thought, for a bright soul. “I am Jack,” he returned, and they both smiled at each other again. Then, Mark requested,“Come join me on the shore. The night is young.”

Before he knew it, Jack was standing next to the young man in the wet sand, sea water lapping at their toes as they gazed upon the golden waves he himself had created. The nymph turned to find that Mark’s eyes were on him.

“Your eyes are the same color as the sea,” the sun murmured. Jack couldn’t pull them away from the gold laced in Mark’s own brown eyes. “Not now,” he replied, voice just as soft. “The sea is gold now, like you.”

Mark’s voice dropped to a whisper, cheeks pink. “Perhaps they were destined to mix.”

Their noses were but inches apart, yet Jack still found it in himself to answer.

“Perhaps.”

The sun and the sea embraced amid the sound of waves and the glow of plankton, enjoying each other’s presence. They sat in the sand, in each other’s arms, until Mark had to bid Jack sweet farewells to give life to the Earth again.

* * *

Mark’s palace was void of people, contrary to the rumors Jack had been told.

What it was full of was food, plush carpets, soft beds and pillows, windows, several of Athena’s own sumptuous tapestries. It was luxurious, cozy, and lacking only company.

“You may stay here,” Mark had insisted when Jack had told him of his predicament: His father Nereus had found out his son’s escapades to the surface and banished him from the underwater cavern of silver he shared with his family. Despite not having touched the sun since their night of entwined arms the earlier night, the two deities spoke often, meeting almost every evening on the shore.

And Jack spent his days as he always had, stirring the seas for the mortals, helping fishermen and their sons to survive, moving along the ships of stuck sailors.

Now, however, he could not return to his family. His father resented him for being curious, and his old home was not welcome to him. Jack would no longer call upon the plankton to light up the waters around the sun’s dwellings, he didn’t want to make waves in his free time, he ate only when Mark asked him to. He didn’t speak much, either, to Mark or to any of the sea creatures.

One night, as he was about to fall asleep, Jack felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

“Come with me,” Mark’s deep voice hummed in the quiet of the night. “I want to show you something.”

With chills down his spine, the nymph obeyed.

He was led to a golden ship where Mark’s chariot and four steeds waited. The trip by sea was beautiful, yet Jack didn’t know what the sun deity was taking him for.

The trip ended when they reached another palace: Mark’s morning dwelling, where he spent some time before he led his horses across the sky. The ship of gold slipped away, back to the other mansion on its own to wait for its owner again.

Mark stepped into the chariot and took hold of the fiery reigns. “It’s time for me to go.” He held out a hand to Jack. “Would you come with me?”

The young nereid simply stared. “In your chariot?” he asked, struck dumb.

“I promise nothing will happen to you,” the sun assured. “You’re safe with me, always.”

Jack looked to the impatient horses and the ready Earth, then back at Mark. What an opportunity this was, to sail across the sky with the sun himself! Feeling a bit of his old mischief return to him, Jack took Mark’s hand with a little smile quirking his lips.

“Hold on to the chariot,” Mark suggested when the nymph stood next to him in the chariot. “It won’t hurt you, and it might be bumpy at times.”

Jack did so, and Mark smiled. Then he snapped the reigns, and the horses bucked, then began to gallop.

Jack had never thought beauty like this was possible. The chariot began to glow, as did the horses and their master. The higher they flew, the brighter Mark’s halo became, until his head was encircled in fiery rays and smile near too bright to look upon.

The nereid made the mistake of looking down at around three hours before noon. He clenched the chariot all the tighter. “We-we’re up very high!” he cried out. Mark chuckled. “Of course we are! How else would we shed light on all of Mother Earth?” Jack didn’t answer as he looked forwards, his legs shaky.

They stilled when he felt Mark’s arm loop around his waist. “I told you you’re safe with me. You must believe me.”

Jack nodded, his heart thumping at how close he was to the deity, how their sides were pressed together, how warm he felt himself becoming. “I do.”

Despite his initial aversion to how high they were speeding, Jack could only find himself marveling at the view from the chariot. The sea was glistening, blue and green and white, the land was rich, the grass and crops swaying in the breeze, the white marble buildings practically glowing.

Mark stopped the chariot at high noon, as he always did, admiring the scenery with his new partner.

“It’s glorious,” Jack breathed. Suddenly, a flash of pure happiness was alight in his chest, and he felt glad that he had found the water’s surface, glad that he had been banished from the silver underwater home he had known his whole life, glad that the plankton loved him.

The nereid turned to the sun, tears in his sea-blue eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Mark smiled, cheeks pink. “I will take you whenever you wish,” he proclaimed. “What is mine is yours.” Slowly, almost hesitantly, the black-haired man brought his forehead forward to touch the sea nymph’s. “If you would like, that is.”

Feeling joy for the first time in too long a time, Jack smiled, then grinned. Forgetting all that had brought him strife, he pushed his lips to meet Mark’s, and they kissed in the sky with the world below them and the stars above them. The sunshine that radiated off of them both touched the Earth and graced it with warmth, with blessings, with love.

When they pulled apart, Jack murmured,“What’s mine is yours.”

The sun and the sea kissed again, immortal together and always.


End file.
